F1 – Review

If you are looking for a perfect summer movie, F1 maybe your ticket. Little is more exciting to watch than F1 racing, even if you know nothing about the sport. F1 THE MOVIE stars Brad Pitt and delivers all the exciting race sequences your could want while also taking you inside that racing world, with footage shot at actual F1 races, in a taut, stylish action tale. Directed by Joseph Kosinki, who helmed TOP GUN: MAVERICK, F1 has all the excitement and thrills of that film but adds in a more polished visual style.

Race cars were born with automobiles themselves, and F1 is the highest-level, most exciting, and classiest form of auto racing, with custom-built and designed cars from the likes of Ferrari, and raced on courses built on streets of famous cities around the world. Movies have a strong tradition of F1 auto racing movies, with several thrilling classics like GRAND PRIX, RUSH and SENNA, and I confess I’ve been hooked on movies about F1 auto racing movies ever since seeing one as a kid. F1 is the elite, international level of auto racing, a whole different world from the Indy 500 and other NASCAR racing, which uses customized version of production cars and simple oval tracks. F1’s custom-build racing cars are designed for racing only, stripped down to the bare but high-powered racing essentials, and with races on twisty, complicated courses, calling for a different level of driving skill.

Filming at actual F1 races, with real drivers and figures from F1 in minor roles, and lead actors doing their own driving gives the film an authentic feel. Fans of F1 will get a charge out of the authenticity but there is no need to know anything about F1 to enjoy this summer-perfect, thrilling movie ride.

Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, who was once a promising F1 driver until a devastating accident cut his career short. Now, Sonny is a freelance driver, picking up race car assignments around the country and living in his RV. Still, Sonny is still has top driving skills, and coming off a win at the Indy 500, he turns down offers to join racing teams, preferring to maintain his wandering lifestyle. When an old teammate, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who owns a struggling F1 team called Apex, drops in to recruit Sonny as a driver, Sonny reluctantly agrees to help his old friend. Ruben has a talented young driver with a bright future, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) but needs a more experienced driver to help him gain experience.

Pearce is a cocky hotshot from a British working-class immigrant background, and resents having Sonny or anyone else offering advice, so the two of them don’t hit it off. Pearce thinks of Sonny as a has-been or worse,, never-been, because of his short-circuited F1 career, while Hayes describes the young driver as arrogant, hot-headed and with a lot to learn, when talking to Ruben. “Just like you were,” Ruben responses.

Yet the two do find a way to work together as a team, and along with improvements by the team’s car designer, Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), things start to look up. Meanwhile, Ruben is under pressure from Apex’s board of directors, who are threatening to sell the company if Ruben’s team doesn’t start winning. Ruben’s ally on the board, (Tobias Menzies) keeps Ruben updated on what the board is doing.

The plot is classic Hollywood, the old hand and the young gun, but the script by Ehren Kruger adds plenty of twists and surprises to keep us guessing. Brad Pitt gives an excellent performance in this role as the elusive Sonny, looking good at 61 years old, fit but a bit craggy. His character is independent and crafty, laying down a strategy for winning but rarely sharing his plan with the rest of the team before hand. Sonny and designer Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), a former aerospace engineer and the only woman auto designer in F1, have romantic sparks as soon as they meet, but they are restrained by their own better professional and personal judgment. Still, that restraint erodes over time, unsurprisingly, and Pitt and Condon work well together, with a playful sexy chemistry in the love interest addition. Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem are fantastic in scenes together, with good supporting work from Damson Idris as the cocky young driver and Tobias Menzies as a smiling, slippery board member.

While Brad Pitt is great, the real star of this show are the racing sequences, which are brilliantly done and thrilling to watch. The action photography by Claudio Miranda is stylish, and the races, which are gripping and even a bit frightening, are further elevated by Hans Zimmer’s score. Both Pitt and Idris did their own driving for the film, and many scenes were shot at actual F1 races and with real F1 drivers making appearances, and with the cooperation of the F1 sporting organization.

It all adds up. F1 is a perfect summer movie, a thrilling tale set in an exciting world of high-octane racing, with top-rate action, fine photography and polished production values, and a first-rate cast in a classic Hollywood tale.

F1 opens Friday, June 27, in theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars